Collapsible wire bound box



28, 1936. E GARDNER 2,039,273

COLLAPSIBLE WIRE BOUND Box Filed ooi. 2, 1935 INVEN TOR.

ATTORNEY` Patented Apr. 28, 1936 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE COLLAPSIBLEWIRE BOUND BOX Application October 2, 1933,. Serial No. 691,769

4 Claims.

The object of my invention is to factory-fabricate the four major sidesof a wire bound crate in connected form of such character as to becollapsible for convenient shipment and readily ex-V pansible for easyassociation with top and bottom elements- At the present time thegeneral commercial practice is to produce, on specially designedmachines, a blank composed of four cleat-and-slat sides connected bywires stapled thereto and eX- tending transversely of the side sections.Many of these blanks are of such length that as they emerge from theforming machine, the first two sections are folded back over the lasttwo sections, in order to overlie the second two sections, so that theblanks may be more readily handled in shipment. This folding puts anundesirable kink in the bonding wires at the junction between the middlesections of the blank, and the user must first straighten the blank,through an arc of 180 degrees at the fold line, then further bend thewires, at this line, through an additional arc of 90 degrees, and twistthe ends of each wire together. Special tools and skill are required forthis operation and, generally, two workmen of the user are required toperform the necessary operations efliciently.

In blanks of this type, the adjacent ends of the cleats are of such formthat the above-mentioned factory-folding operation must be made so as toplace the cleats on the outside of the folded blanks and when the foldedblanks are stacked they cannot be slid one upon the other.

In my present crate the cleats, at their adjacent ends, are so formed asto permit factoryfolding of the blanks between the middle sections withthe cleats inwardly and the ends of the wires factory-connected so thatthe user has merely to expand the blank to rectangular form, whereuponthe top and bottom elements may be immediately associated therewith.

The accompanying drawing illustrates my invention.

Fig. 1 is an edge view of one of my collapsed i blanks;

Fig. 2 an edge view, on a larger scale, of an expanded blank, withintermediate portions of the side sections omitted;

Fig. 3 a perspective View of adjacent ends of two cleats at the collapsefold-lines; and

Fig. 4 a perspective of a possible form of laterally-interlocking ofadjacent ends of two cleats where collapsing folding is not possible.

In the drawing A, B, C and D indicate the four sections of the blank.The sections are formed of veneer sheeting or slats III and transversecleats II. The sheetings or slats and cleats, as is customary, aresecured together by staples I3 which also serve to attach the bindingwires I4 which project beyond the sides of sections A and D, as isusual, so that these ends may be twisted together.

The cleats are identical and at one end are beveled, as indicated at I5,on a 45 degree angle while at the opposite end are provided with asquare-end tongue I6 and associated beveled portion I'I, each of theseportions having, preferably, a width slightly less than one-half thecleat width so that, when mated, space for the binding wire is afforded.The bevel I'I, depending upon the thickness of the slats, may besomewhat less than 45 degrees, but, where the cleats are in theneighborhood of V2 inch thick, as is somewhat general in the art, theangle of this level may be somewhere less than 45 degrees, it merelybeing necessary to cut back the inner corner enough to permit completeinward folding of adjacent cleats, as shown.

For convenience of description I designate the line between sections Aand D, and between sections B and C as collapse fold-lines and the linesbetween sections A and B and C and D as eX- pansion fold-lines, thecleatl ends I5 being adjacent the expansion fold-lines and the cleatends having the portions I 6-I 'I being at the collapse fold lines.

Assuming that section A is the rst to emerge from the forming machine,its cleat ends IG--I'l will be in advance and the beveled cleat ends I5of cleats I2 of section B will be adjacent the similarly beveled ends I5of the cleats II of section A. When section B emerges from the machinesections A and B may be swung downwardly and the free end of section Aheld vstationary in its depressed position so that the oncoming sectionsC and D may override and overlie the sections A and B, and the two pairsof sections A-B and C-D will be parallel. Thereupon the ends of thewires which are projected beyond the free ends (or edges) of thesections A and D may be twisted together by a workman, conveniently inthe factory, to whom the offbear man, who performs the above describedfolding operation, delivers the folded blank as he carries it from theforming machine. The above-mentioned single folding operation is hereperformed by the off-bear workman in the factory who, at the moment,would, under earlier operations, be performing the upward and rearwardfolding of the iirst two sections of the blank.

The provision of the beveled end portions Il' permits the collapsingoperation which has just been described.

The user merely takes one of the collapsed blanks and separates theblank laterally, moving the adjacent ends of the pairs of sections A--Band C-D away from each other until the beveled ends i5, l5 register. Thetongues I6 of the other of the cleats, at the collapse fold-line rideover the bevels I1 and lie tight against the tips of said bevels whenthe blank has been fully expanded. 'Thereupon the expanded blank isassociated, in the usual well-known manner, with the elements which areto form the top and bottom (or ends) of the crate.

The binding wires, at the collapse fold-lines is drawn between theoverlapping tongues I6 and therefore is not too greatly tensioned, atthis point, by the collapsing operation and is therefore in condition,on blank expansion, to hold the sections together satisfactorily at thecollapse fold-lines.

Lateral interlock between the cleats at what I have termed the expansionfold lines, may be provided by forming the ends i5 by beveling only aportion of these ends, as indicated at l5', Fig. 4, and forming theother portions of the cleats with a cooperating tenon l5 or rabbet |5",as indicated in Fig. 4.

It will, of course, be understood that the twist junction 20 between thebinding wires may be arranged adjacent one of the expansion foldlines,instead of adjacent one of the collapse fold-lines, without departingfrom the spirit of my invention, but in .that case section B would bethe initial section of the blank and the workman would then fold itunder section C as C emerged from the machine and section A would befolded under section D after section A had emerged from the machine, sothat with such an arrangement the olf-bear man would have to perform twofolding operations instead of one.

I claim as my invention:

1. A wire bound box blank comprising four sections cleated on one faceand connected by transversely-extending binding wires on the oppositeface, the mating ends of cleats at two alternate fold lines each havinginwardly-beveled end portions flanked by tongues which overlie thebeveled portion of the mating cleat.

2. A wire bound box blank comprising four sections cleated on one faceand connected by transversely-extending binding wires on the oppositeface, the mating ends of cleats at two alternate fold-lines each havinginwardly-beveled end portions, and the ends of each binding wire unitedto form a continuous binding element, each of said binding wiresopposite said alternate fold lines lying at less than a cleat thicknessfrom the inner junction corner of adjacent cleats when the structure isexpanded.

3. A wire-bound box blank comprising four internally-cleated sectionscomposed of sheet material and transverse cleats having a thicknessmaterially greater than sheet thickness and connected by externalbinding wires extending lengthwise of the cleats, the mating ends of thecleats at two of the diagonally opposite corners of the expanded boxformed for abutting relation substantially at right angles to each otherto permit relative swing into alinement and to resist relative swinginto parallelism, the mating ends of the cleats at the other twodiagonally opposite corners of the expanded box formed for abuttingrelation substantially at right angles to each other and to permitrelative swing about an axis in the plane of one inner face of one ofthe cleats and spaced from the intersection of the planes of the innerfaces of said cleats when in expanded relation into parallelism, thebinding wires at these corners with the box expanded lying closer to thebox center than the line of intersection of the planesof the outersurfaces of the immediately adjacent cleats, whereby the structure, withthe two ends of each binding wire connected together, when expanded maybe collapsed to bring the two cleats of diagonally opposite pairs ofcleats into alinement with each other and the cleats of one pair intoparallelism with the cleats of the other pair without separation of theconnected ends of the binding wires.

4. A wire-bound box blank comprising four internally-cleated sectionscomposed of sheet material and transverse cleats having a thicknessmaterially greater than sheet thickness and connected by externalbinding wires extending lengthwise of the cleats, the mating ends of thecleats at two of the diagonally opposite corners of the expanded boxformed for abutting relation substantially at right angles to each otherto permit relative swing into alinement and to resist relative swinginto parallelism, the mating ends of the cleats at the other twodiagonally opposite corners of the expanded box formed for abuttingrelation substantially at right angles to each other and to permitrelative swing about an axis in the plane of one inner face of one ofthe cleats and spaced from the intersection of the planes of the innerfaces of said cleats when in expanded relation into parallelism, thebinding Wires at these corners with the box expanded lying closer to thebox center than the line of intersection of the planes of the outersurfaces of the immediately adjacent cleats, and the mating ends of thecleats at at least two of the corners of the expanded box formed forabutting relation transversely of the binding wires, whereby thestructure, with the two ends of each binding wire connected together,when expanded may be collapsed to bring the two cleats of diagonallyopposite pairs of cleats into alinement with each other and the cleatsof one pair into parallelism with the cleats of the other pair withoutseparation of the connected ends of the binding Wires.

GEORGE E. GARDNER.

